Does EU enlargement policy remain credible in a world of mounting threats to Europe’s resilience? Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine has fundamentally changed the environment in which the EU enlargement policy operates, and with it, what that credibility now requires. 

The Horizon Europe-funded project “InvigoratEU – Invigorating Enlargement and Neighbourhood Policy for a Resilient Europe“ has spent the past three years examining how the EU can reinvigorate its enlargement and neighbourhood policy for this new era. Bringing together researchers from across the EU, the Western Balkans and the Eastern Neighbourhood, the project has developed innovative tools to better understand the pressures affecting the region and respond to them directly. These range from a first-of-its-kind External Influence Index tracking Russian, Chinese and Turkish influence on candidate countries, to a toolbox of actionable recommendations for policy-makers.

As InvigoratEU enters its final phase, these three years of research come together at its Final Conference, “Invigorating EU Enlargement”, on 5 November 2026, at the BIP Meeting Centre, Rue Royale 2-4, 1000 Brussels.

Taking the project’s findings as a starting point, the conference opens up a thorough discussion of what the project has learned, and, more importantly, look ahead to what comes next for the EU. Is the current enlargement methodology still fit for purpose? How can modernisation and geopolitical logic of EU enlargement policy reinforce each other in today’s accession process? How should the EU and future Member States build greater resilience together in the face of detrimental pressures on critical infrastructure, foreign information manipulation and interference, and social cohesion?